4 ms·

Of course allowing more housing impacts people. And people on their iPhones impact me -- when they're behind the wheel, when they're talking loudly in a restaur

Of course allowing more housing impacts people. And people on their iPhones impact me -- when they're behind the wheel, when they're talking loudly in a restaurant, when I can't get their attention in a shop. The towers impact me (they're ugly and ubiquitous and use valuable spectrum). And lawnmowers? Those impact me, too! They're loud and stir up dust. I'm struggling to think of anything objectionable about sofas, but that just means 2/3 of my totally-arbitrary examples have significant impacts on others. And, because those examples were totally arbitrary, we could easily substitute three far more objectionable products. You live in a society. Of course the things other people do impact you. That's a low bar, easily met, and not interesting enough to justify a ban on new housing. The impacts have to be overwhelmingly harmful to justify prohibition. Apartment buildings clearly do not meet that standard. You might not like apartments, but I love them, and banal preferences shouldn't drive policy in a free society.

wonderwonder 4y ago
Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. Everyone gets an equal say. Seems like not enough of the voting population agrees with you and as such no new houses are built. America is a huge country though, plenty of very affordable housing elsewhere. Everyone doesn't get to just have what they want where they want it though, that's capitalism for you.
- lkbm 4y ago
  It's not capitalism, though. In capitalism, I could use money to build an apartment building on the land that I own. If wouldn't be capitalism if we demanded you let us build on your land, but it's certainly not capitalism when you won't let us build on our land.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    In any -ism.you could build an apartment on your own land[1]. It's capitalism that turns it into capital which allows you to rent it out or sell it as property. 1. to the extent that land can be owned under a given mode of production.
    - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
      Tenants existed before capitalism. Marx discusses this in Capital when he discusses the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The ownership class changed (from the Lord to the landlord) but the relationship continues to exist. The idea of using an asset to generate returns on the asset is indeed a capitalist concept but housing is but one aspect of that. It's in important distinction because even post-capitalist dialectics need an answer for the need of housing.
- dionidium 4y ago
  > Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. In the United States we have a Constitution that enumerates a set of Rights about which nobody gets to vote. It doesn't matter if you (or even 99% of all people) think it should be illegal for me to express this opinion, for example; you don't get to vote on that. Private property rights in my view quite clearly fall under this rubric and it's only because of a few laughably bad SCOTUS decisions that this is even a live debate at all. For most of our history this was well understood. If given the chance, most people will vote to ban new construction in their neighborhoods. I presume that if given the chance significant percentages of the population would also vote to ban certain kinds of speech. In neither case do I believe those positions are made legitimate by virtue of having majority support.
  - wonderwonder 4y ago
    I agree for the most part but government is always going to have the power to regulate what property in city limits can be used for. This prevents things like me opening a shooting range or a night club in a single family home neighborhood. Laws are put in place to prevent a worsening of living conditions for people that already live somewhere. 100% with you on free speech though. Government has no right to control what we say. I would go even further and ban companies being able to fire people for expressing unpopular or even racist opinions away from work. I'm a jew and if a dude is a Nazi on his free time but professional in the office he should remain unfired. Applies to speech only, if he's breaking the law via assault, arson, etc. then sure, fire him.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > In the United States we have a Constitution that enumerates a set of Rights about which nobody gets to vote No, it doesn't, since people actually do campaign on changing the Constitution. I mean, unless you specifically and exclusively mean “the right to equal representation of your State in the Senate”, and even that is debatable, since you could vote for someone who proposes removing that limitation on amendments from the Constitution.

wonderwonder 4y ago

Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. Everyone gets an equal say. Seems like not enough of the voting population agrees with you and as such no new houses are built. America is a huge country though, plenty of very affordable housing elsewhere. Everyone doesn't get to just have what they want where they want it though, that's capitalism for you.

lkbm 4y ago
It's not capitalism, though. In capitalism, I could use money to build an apartment building on the land that I own. If wouldn't be capitalism if we demanded you let us build on your land, but it's certainly not capitalism when you won't let us build on our land.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  In any -ism.you could build an apartment on your own land[1]. It's capitalism that turns it into capital which allows you to rent it out or sell it as property. 1. to the extent that land can be owned under a given mode of production.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Tenants existed before capitalism. Marx discusses this in Capital when he discusses the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The ownership class changed (from the Lord to the landlord) but the relationship continues to exist. The idea of using an asset to generate returns on the asset is indeed a capitalist concept but housing is but one aspect of that. It's in important distinction because even post-capitalist dialectics need an answer for the need of housing.
dionidium 4y ago
> Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. In the United States we have a Constitution that enumerates a set of Rights about which nobody gets to vote. It doesn't matter if you (or even 99% of all people) think it should be illegal for me to express this opinion, for example; you don't get to vote on that. Private property rights in my view quite clearly fall under this rubric and it's only because of a few laughably bad SCOTUS decisions that this is even a live debate at all. For most of our history this was well understood. If given the chance, most people will vote to ban new construction in their neighborhoods. I presume that if given the chance significant percentages of the population would also vote to ban certain kinds of speech. In neither case do I believe those positions are made legitimate by virtue of having majority support.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  I agree for the most part but government is always going to have the power to regulate what property in city limits can be used for. This prevents things like me opening a shooting range or a night club in a single family home neighborhood. Laws are put in place to prevent a worsening of living conditions for people that already live somewhere. 100% with you on free speech though. Government has no right to control what we say. I would go even further and ban companies being able to fire people for expressing unpopular or even racist opinions away from work. I'm a jew and if a dude is a Nazi on his free time but professional in the office he should remain unfired. Applies to speech only, if he's breaking the law via assault, arson, etc. then sure, fire him.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > In the United States we have a Constitution that enumerates a set of Rights about which nobody gets to vote No, it doesn't, since people actually do campaign on changing the Constitution. I mean, unless you specifically and exclusively mean “the right to equal representation of your State in the Senate”, and even that is debatable, since you could vote for someone who proposes removing that limitation on amendments from the Constitution.